Balance

Lately, I've really been struggling with finding a sense of balance surrounding school, and life.

For the last month, pretty much every waking thought I've had has been devoted to school, assignments, how to get into grad school, how to navigate careers in musicology, developing music skills and knowledge, and the like. While I have taken moments to try to stop and rest, very few moments have occurred.

I started university as a political science student, and music was where I found moments of rest and reprise; comfort and security. It's fair to say that music has always been my joy, my greatest passion. It's what I wake up and go to bed thinking about, and what my mind usually wanders to when it has the chance to wander.

Now that passion is in the process of becoming my livelihood, and when something is becoming a livelihood, your relationship to it will change. That's not to say that music doesn't remain a place of reprise and rest for me; it is still how I connect to myself, others, and divinity; it is still my way of life.

But it's also what I study; it's my schoolwork, and I have my head in it all day, every day. Music school is a lifestyle, and it definitely consumes far more of my time than poli sci ever did. I'm used to relieving the stress of school with, well, music! So, all semester, I've been going home, and reading more about musicology, playing more, singing more, listening more...but they don't give me the same sense of relaxation, because there's a sense of guilt: I shouldn't be listening to Haydn when I ought to be listening to atonal music of the 20th century, I shouldn't be singing for the love of it when I ought to be practicing solfege, I shouldn't be thinking about composing when I ought to be studying theory. Even when all my assignments are complete, I often feel like I'm not doing enough.

None of this is to say that I don't love what I'm doing; I do. It's rare that a day goes by when I don't stop and think about how lucky I am to have these opportunities; to get to live my passion. But pursuing any dream is exhausting, and I suppose I'm just a little worn down.

So I need to find something new to give me a place of rest; a metaphorical "Sabbath" (or maybe I could just take the real one off) from school, and careers, and plans. Maybe I could take up baking again...baking cakes from scratch got me through many a Social Science essay (along with fruit snacks, Tostitos, and a whole lot of coffee). Maybe they can get me through theory assignments, too?

The "Weekend"

The "restful period" of the week, as planned:

Friday:

5:30-8:30: Get ready for school, finish English essay, go over solfege and keyboarding for 170B.
8:30-11:30: Class
12:10: Keyboard exam
12:30-1:30: English tutorial
1:30-3:30: AVP Shift
5:30-9:30 Shift at Save-On MC
9:30- Go home. Watch Carmen. Listen to Bizet until your reasons for pursuing this overwhelming, at times masochistic degree process all come back to you. It'll happen. Probably somewhere in the middle of "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle".

Saturday:

8:30-12:30: Run, do laundry, English readings, revise English essay, theory readings and assignment.
1:00-2:30: Do something fun with friends. In a place where someone is selling excess supply of caffeine.
2:30-4:30: Work on researching/writing for an annotated bibliography for a paper on Salome and Elektra
4:30-5:30: Get to work
5:30-9:30: Shift at MC
9:30- Finish revising and e-mail English essay, practice keyboarding and sight-singing for Monday sight-singing make-up since my voice was a hoarse, sickly blob today in 170B when I should have tested.

Sunday:

8:00-9:00: Get ready for mass
9:30-11:00: Mass
11:00-5:30: Finish any and all incomplete theory readings and at least 2/3 of the assignment. Make a chord chart outlining functions and properties of all chords studied thus far. Review voice leading principles. Catch up on Music History listening and readings. Practice Haydn Divertimento and Grade 5 technique. Start outlining paper. Finish Acadia application.
7:00-10:00: Hildegard von Bingen movie on campus!
10:00-12:00: Breathe. Visualize the coming school week going better than this one did!

From Music Comes...

Over the last couple days I've been thinking a lot about all the benefits of music school, beyond and past the fact that we get to study and learn all about (in my opinion) one of the greatest things on the planet.

One thing I've found is that music school teaches you a specific skill set and/or lifestyle. Instead of preparing term papers, and for midterms/final exams, we have weekly theory assignments, weekly keyboarding/dictation/sight-singing tests, weekly ensemble rehearsals, private lessons, and history readings and required listening (both which tend to get neglected). Performance majors also have master classes, and Education majors have even more stress on top of that... Then there's the finals and midterms/unit exams and papers on top of all the weekly stuff. Also, we have to get at least 60% on theory/aural finals in order to continue in music scholarship. Throw on ensemble performances, music in the community (church music ministries or community musical theatre/choirs/bands), and part-time jobs...and you have STRESS. Especially if you're a very social person who requires human contact beyond quick snatched moments in the music lounge before/between classes, because then you somehow must organize some kind of social life around this. And every now and then, I find, you need time to leave music scholarship behind and simply listen to or create music, or watch a performance, so you remember why on earth you're putting yourself through all the chaos in the first place.

To handle that lifestyle with sanity and GPA intact, you have to learn to be organized. You have to be able to handle stress, to be proactive, to do some work each and every day. You have to learn to be intrinsically motivated and self-starting. You also have to learn to ask for help when you need it. You learn how important it is to develop a support system, and something that calms you the heck down and provides perspective when you feel like the world is going to come to an end because you got 65% on one of the weekly things that gets averaged into a larger mark (for me, going to mass does it, so I'm on a mission to go to mass again on a weekly basis in 2011 instead of the monthly basis of 2010. Hold me to it, people!).

But I think the biggest thing is that you learn to grab quick moments of rest in the midst of the flurry of chaotic activity. You learn to have a laugh with friends between classes, or to do meditative breathing exercises on the bus (in a subtle fashion, of course), or to quickly play or listen to that one piece of music that can always make you smile or laugh (Haydn, anyone?!?). You learn to center yourself, at a moment's notice, which is beneficial to...well, every component of life; every hat we have to wear.

Just one of the many benefits of my "useless" degree. ;-P